


What It Means To Be Human

by JNad



Category: Castle Rock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 07:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16192949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JNad/pseuds/JNad
Summary: Two-shot, post-finale. Henry's doubts are rekindled...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native English speaker, so if you find any mistakes feel free to point them out but please do so politely! I try to improve my English skills.  
> 

Part 1

_“How much doubt are you comfortable with?”_

He wasn’t a bad man. He wasn’t like Lacy. He told himself over and over again that what he did was right, that it was better this way. It certainly was the safer option. It seemed like the safer option at that time. But now, while he was staring into a box, doubts started to spring up again. Doubts far deeper than he had possessed before opening it. Its contents were life-changing. A scarf, muted in colour and soft to the touch, was wrapped around a dark brown wool coat that, once it was unfolded, was clearly made for a person above average height. Black leather gloves peaked out of its pocket. With a dreading sense of curiosity he tried them on; he wasn’t surprised to find that they were way too large on him, their fingers reaching beyond his own finger tips, giving his hands the impression of huge spindly long-legged black spiders.

  
Located at the bottom of the box under an old stained tea towel were nice brown leather shoes, at least three sizes bigger than his own shoe size. He laid the towel out on the table and carefully set the shoes on it. They had a slight layer of dust on them, tainting their rich medium brown colour. He used the towel to wipe it off. He picked the left one up, turning it in his hands and looking inside it, searching for an inscription or something similar. They seemed to be custom-made shoes, probably manufactured by someone with the initials ‘A. D.’ that he found etched on the inner right side just above the insole. The whole outfit had an air of wealth and sophistication to it, making him wonder once more.

  
His son had found the box. Excitedly, Wendell had exclaimed “Look, Dad! I found an old box! There might be some ancestral treasure in it. It even has your initials!”. He had found it while they were both going through Ruth’s and Alan’s belongings in his childhood home, two months after Ruth had peacefully died there in her own bed, holding the white king of her favourite chess set close to her heart. He had looked at it nonchalantly at first, expecting it to hold some of his old toys that his mother couldn’t bring herself to throw away once he had fled Castle Rock. But even looking at the unevenly drawn big black letters on it, he was suddenly overcome by a foreboding sense of guilt and fear out of nowhere, resulting in him sending a reluctant Wendell out to get some more cardboard boxes and garbage bags from the local hardware store.

  
Here he was now, staring at the spread out contents of the mysterious box, contemplating once again if his decision had just been a huge mistake. Cautiously, he put the shoes back in the box, placing the tea towel above it and folding up the coat and scarf over it. He slid the lid back on and peered one more time at its side to make sure he hadn’t imagined it. It was a weary looking, wooden box marked with black ink; there, undisputedly and in huge crude letters was written ‘H D’, sparking in Henry more doubts than he could ever be comfortable with.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

His existence was structured by monotony. Sometimes he passed the time by counting the constant drip-drip of water droplets gliding and dropping of the metal walls. It was akin to a clock ticking, providing him with some kind of time measurement system. But what did it matter? He had passed almost thirty years down here, he would manage another decade, maybe two, if he was lucky and didn’t go completely crazy or die out of sheer boredom. Seconds meant nothing, hours meant nothing. Days didn’t exist and years blended together in a vast emptiness of existence. Existing. There was no point in it, really. What is existing if it means spending your days without any light, no sunlight, not even an artificial light to give his eyes something to occupy them. Not that there was much to see in his ho-prison, anyway. The couple of times that the other Henry came to visit and generously provided him with some lighting he was disappointed each time by how little his surroundings had changed. The slack greyness of the walls, the cold blackness of the steel bars keeping him from wandering around in his prison, the bland non-descript colour of the big old pots Henry was using to store water and other essentials in - all of it converged in a vacant mass of all-too-similar dark colours, sucking out any kind of joy that he had hoped to experience by his brain being stimulated by anything other than black emptiness. He was aware that he was starting to lose his wits, but he had to admit that he wasn’t completely averse to it. Anything to make his life less monotone and more bearable was welcome.

  
He had always measured Henry’s visits by the lowness of the level of drinking water in one of his pots; whenever there was only about two fingers’ width left of it, Henry would arrive and restock his supplies. But the pot was still almost half full, so he wasn’t prepared for the creaking noise of the hatch opening. He listened intently for Henry descending on the ladder, and immediately noticed something was off. Instead of the careful but steady descent that he was used to identify him with, he came down much slower than usual and, judging by the occasional grunt of frustration and exhaustion, his load was much heavier and more unwieldy than he was used to. When Henry finally arrived at the bottom and switched the floodlights on, he had already retreated back into the corner of his cage, back against the metal wall. His brain, despite being so depraved of any new stimulation and novelties, instantly switched to flight mode, telling him to keep away from the potentially dangerous unknown. His will power and curiosity wasn’t strong enough to override this immediate instinctive reaction, so he stayed where he was pressed up against the harsh coldness, blinking a few times to adjust his eyes to the rare brightness. Henry looked at him with an expression that he had never seen on him before. There was a new softness to him and – was that fondness? No, he must have read too much into it. This was his brain trying to calm him in the wake of new unknown things to come. Henry knelt down, averting his eyes to rummage through his bag that, upon glancing at it, seemed indeed a lot bigger than usual. He took a big bundle out of it, unfolding it and revealing it to be a bright blue and soft-looking thick blanket. He was flabbergasted. For what would Henry need that for? Was he planning on sleeping next to his cage? Then he reached a second time into his bag and pulled out a matching big blue pillow and set it down next to the blanket. He searched through his bag a few more times, each time emerging with another confusing object. Finally, he had unpacked a flashlight, a pencil, a book with a plain dark red cover, a flask, a plastic cup and a folded-up piece of dark cloth. Without a word, Henry unlocked a small hatch that was built into his cage and held the pillow and blanket through it, waiting for him to take it. He approached, cautiously reaching out his hand to touch one corner of the blanket. When Henry made no move to pull it from him, he quickly grabbed the whole bundle and slid down to the floor with it, clinging to it and cradling it in his arms like some precious living thing. He glimpsed the corners of Henry’s lips quirking upwards briefly; so fleetingly, in fact, that he thought he had imagined it.

Now that he observed Henry’s demeanour more closely, he did indeed seem different; less cold and distant, in some way. But then his face changed once again into the indifferent mask that he was used to, and he shrank away slightly, retreating into his usual corner. Henry sighed and stared at his arrangement of objects for a moment. Then he opened the flask and poured a small amount of its steaming content into the plastic cup, tentatively sliding it across the floor to the bars of his cage. “It’s chamomile tea,” he clarified, “my mom used to give it to me whenever I was sick…” His face fell, perhaps recalling a memory of Ruth. He sighed again, and then seemed to pull himself together. “I bought a blank notebook, you can use the pencil to write something down if you want. There’s also a flashlight, you’ll probably need it.” He pushed said objects towards his cage, so he could reach them through the bars. Henry stopped once more to look at him. Then he reached down to pick up the unidentifiable piece of cloth and dropped it through the hatch in his cage, closing and locking it securely afterwards. Without further words, he stood to gather up his bag and reached to switch off the floodlights. _The Kid_ scrambled towards the cloth and picked it up, revealing it to be a dark grey scarf - his scarf - the one that his fiancée gifted him with on their fifth Christmas together – and was immediately overwhelmed by an intense mixture of love and grief, keeping his heart in a chokehold of bewildering emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time. Clutching the familiar piece of fabric to his face and breathing in its dusty smell left him speechless for a moment and, while Henry was about to climb up the ladder, he frantically raked his brain for something to say. At the moment that Henry had reached the hatch of the tank, he finally found his voice again. “Thank you”, he managed to croak out in a small voice, knowing that Henry would have never been able to hear it. The hatch closed with a resounding screech and he was once again bathed in complete darkness. “Thank you”, he whispered to himself and silently started sobbing into his scarf.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! 
> 
> This one wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it down. I loved this show, but as you can probably tell I wasn't too happy about that ending and especially the way Henry acted in it. So I had to fix it in some way. And then I made myself sad. Oh well.  
> First fic ever, comments of any kind are very much appreciated!
> 
> xxx JNad.


End file.
